10 Ways Virtualization Can Help Your Business - Slide 8

7. Automation

"Through a seamless automation platform, companies are able to leverage the benefits of virtualization as well as execute faster provisioning of infrastructure or applications. Automation solutions can replace labor-intensive processes with consistent, automated workflows that can save thousands in workflow costs and reduce the risk of error." -- Jeff Carlat, director of partner and platform software, infrastructure software and blades, HP Enterprise Business

Your ability to automate many of the more tedious jobs of IT management is greatly improved because virtual resources now reside in the more ethereal software realm. In fact, tasks like data mapping, mirroring and backup will have to be automated because the virtual environment is so fluid.

Virtualization has taken a firm hold at most enterprises these days, but the fact is we've only just begun to unleash the true potential of the technology. Our Arthur Cole spoke to analysts and industry experts to compile the following quick list of the ways virtualization can benefit your business.